A reconstruction surgery helps 2 year old baby fight rare deformity

Narayana Health City perform a successful surgery on a rare and complicated birth defect of 2-year-old (Gender not known) in which the abdominal organs -the bladder and intestines are exposed and genital anomalies are not formed.

Dismissed as an evil in the Eugandan town, the parents were completely shattered when they discovered at the time of their baby’s birth that it was born with an extremely rare and complicated condition called Cloacal Exstrophy. The mother didn’t even know the baby’s gender as the genital organs were not visible. The condition occurs during the prenatal (before birth) development where the intestine, stomach, bowel and urinary bladder are prolapsed outside the body. Incidence of this defect is one in 400,000 children and counted as the most serious form of all abdominal malformations.

Often the deformity is detected during pre-natal scans and the foetus is aborted. Unfortunately in this case the condition went undiagnosed and resulted in birth of a highly malformed child – a rare encounter of this condition in modern medical practice. Despite this frightening malformation, the parents took care of the baby and came to Narayana Health City, Bangalore with a hope for corrective surgery as the baby would not survive otherwise.

After a thorough assessment, a team headed by Dr. Ashley D’Cruz along with other paediatric surgeons, plastic surgeons and anaesthetist were able to successfully repair the defect. During the 10-hour-long reconstruction surgery, the team of experts reconstructed the child’s bowel, bladder and created stomas (external openings in abdominal wall) to permit clean/hygienic collection of excreted wastes. However, the baby’s genital organs cannot be confirmed at this stage. “Rudimentary development of a penis suggests the baby is a boy” said Dr. D’cruz.

The successful surgery has ensured that the infant grows-up to have a better quality life. The patient has been discharged from the hospital and returned to Uganda.